08 January 2013

Review of The Geek Manifesto

My review of The Geek Manifesto is up over at The Breakthrough Institute. In it I discuss "predistortion," the UEA emails, David Nutt's sacking and a conversation between Clint Eastwood and Gene Hackman in Unforgiven. Here is a short excerpt:

The idea that science and scientists deserve special treatment in politics is often what leads to the temptation to exploit that specialness for political gain, which ultimately works against science being afforded special treatment. In this manner, calls for a “geek revolution” can have a hard time avoiding the slippery slope of scientific authoritarianism.

See the entire, longish review here. Please feel free to come back and tell me what you think!